


nyumbani

by Siria



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-18
Updated: 2009-05-18
Packaged: 2017-10-02 18:45:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She brings him to see her home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	nyumbani

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to [Jenn](http://dogeared.livejournal.com) for betaing.

She brings him to see her home. Not the cluttered quarters she'd shared with Lieutenant Gaila during her years in the academy, but across the expanse of Earth's ocean—the breadth of them surprising to him still—to the place of her birth. Looking out of the transport's windows, he observes that is a very human city—crowded and noise-filled, its houses roofed in red and green tiles and painted a myriad of colours—and though the skyscrapers, curved like blades of sharp grass and reflecting the deep blue of the Pacific Ocean, are unlike anything once to be found on Vulcan, Spock still finds it strangely pleasing to the eye.

"Welcome to Dar es Salaam," the computer says in English and Swahili and Arabic when the transport doors open. "Local time is 15.27. Local temperature is 41 degrees Celsius." Though the climate is more humid than he is used to, the heat is pleasant after the chill, damp winds that make San Francisco in the fall uncomfortable for one of Vulcan heritage, and Spock inclines his face towards the blue sky as they exit the craft.

"This way," Nyota says, heading for the space port's exit—and it is, he thinks, only logical to take her hand and to follow her.

* * *

Nyota insists that they alight from the tram two tree-lined streets away from her family home. She tells him that this is so that she can point out childhood landmarks to him—the small store where she and her cousins would buy cool drinks, the trees which she had dared herself to climb as a seven year old, the school she had attended as a small child—but Spock thinks that the chance to stop and talk with those she meets on the street is just as important to her.

_Habari, bwana_, he hears her say to those who greet her with the smiles of old friends, and _mzuri sana; sijambo, bibi_ and _asalaamu alekum_. It is a tribute to her expertise that it is not always to the forefront of Spock's mind when he hears her speak that this language—not English or Mandarin, not Vulcan or an obscure dialect of Old High Romulan—is the language she heard in her cradle, the accent that gives inflection to her self.

Nyota turns and smiles at him as they round the corner of her street, and Spock tugs gently at her hand until she stops. He stands with her under the shade of an _mpingo_ tree and brushes a careful, chaste kiss to her temple—it was a failure of proper consideration on his part to realise that like him, she has been required to frame her thoughts and speak of her actions in words that were not her mind's own, to excel regardless, and asked for no favouritism for it.

"What was that for?" she asks him, though she does not sound at all displeased by the attention.

"Recognition," Spock tells her, and the dimple that appears in Nyota's cheek tells him that she has caught the meaning, if not the sense, behind his words.

* * *

Her family is kind, after the human manner, and undemanding. Spock is sure that they have seen much of the events of the past few weeks on news broadcasts, and that Nyota has informed them of the rest, but they do not ask him any questions beyond those required to ascertain that their trip here had been an uneventful one. For that, he is grateful.

M'Umbha Uhura allots them a quiet room to the rear of the family home, cupping her oldest daughter's cheek in her hand and smiling at them both before she leaves them to rest. Inside the bedroom, it is dim and still, and Nyota's body is a long curve next to his on the crisp white sheets. Spock thinks of Vulcan and of Earth; of the new colony and his mother and a field of stars seen from the bridge of the _Enterprise_; of his older self and the life he could have led; he thinks of home and Nyota and he calculates the probability of success, the possibilities which lie between the wants which he can acknowledge to himself and the duty he owes to others. He estimates that he has a 43.7% chance of successfully achieving his aims.

Nyota shifts in her sleep, and the dark fall of her hair brushes against the tips of his fingers. Spock thinks of the quality of her smile, the assuredness and the stillness she keeps at the heart of herself, what he cannot deny he feels when she looks at him, and factors in new data. He designed the _Kobayashi Maru_ test, after all, has weighed its impact in both the theoretical and the practical; thanks to James Kirk, thanks to a self formed by a life he's never lived, Spock knows that there is something to be said for refusing to accept a no-win scenario, for winning by changing the rules. He is not who he could have been, and he cannot change the past, but there is no way to logically deny that he is still himself. That he is capable of acts of faith.

He bends to kiss her, when she wakes.


End file.
